NYTimes:

A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected the 11th-hour appeal of Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

WWJBD? What Would Jack Bauer Do?

Here we praised Montana, and here Maine, for opposing the Real ID Act. Today we celebrate New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch last week signed into law a bill that forbids New Hampshire government agencies from complying with the controversial federal national identification act, or Real ID bill.

Lynch explains:

"Real ID is intended to make us all safer, which I think we can all agree is a laudable goal," said Lynch in a statement. "However, I strongly believe Real ID's proposed haphazard implementation and onerous provisions would have the exact opposite effect. The federal government obviously did not think this burdensome system through and that is why we in New Hampshire are right to reject it."

Matt Yglesias writes:

With sentiment on the question of impeaching Bush running at a pretty strong 39 percent for giving him the boot (with 49 percent opposed), I think this needs to enter the mainstream conversation. . . . The fact remains, however, that impeaching and convicting Bush means, in practice, only that Dick Cheney becomes President. . . . Removing Bush doesn't accomplish anything. I suppose you could impeach Cheney, and then impeach Bush before confirming a new vice president, and then Nancy Pelosi becomes president. And that, of course, is going to get 67 votes in the Senate sometime after they establish congressional representation for flying pigs.

So it's never going to happen. But Yglesias says:

You're still left with the problem that this is only getting the requisite votes in fantasyland, but I think it's a perfectly cogent political agenda.

This confuses me. How is a political agenda whose chance for success resides in fantasyland be cogent? More.

Via Marcy Wheeler at Next Hurrah, Scooter Libby has added another lawyer to his defense team, Greg Poe of Robbins, Russell. Laurence Robbins joined earlier to assist with sentencing and appeal issues.

Marcy thinks Poe has been added to try and get Libby out of serving his two year supervised release term. I suspect she's right, although I would expect him to stay on for the duration of Libby's appeal.

I'm going to switch hats again here, and go from bashing Libby's commutation (for which I blame Bush not Libby) to praising defense lawyers such as Libby's latest addition who in the ordinary course of their practice challenge mandatory minimums and the unfairness of the Sentencing Guidelines.

More...

The news today from Iraq:

Suicide bombings across Iraq killed nearly 150 and injured scores, including a massive truck assault in a northern Shiite village that ripped through a crowded market, officials said Saturday.

The violence came as the U.S. military on Saturday reported the deaths of eight American soldiers over the past two days, all killed in combat or by roadside bombs in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. A British soldier was reported killed in fighting in southern Iraq.

The worst carnage unfolded in the Shiite Turkoman village of Amarly, 50 miles south of Kirkuk, when a suicide bomber rammed a truck laden with explosives into the central market, which is near a police station, officials said. The attack killed at least 115 people and wounded at least 210, according to district and hospital officials, adding that they expected the death toll to rise.

Yesterday, President George Bush turned 61. The Dalai Lama turned 73.

Bush celebrated by going to Camp David.

Via Moderate Voice, Craig Johnston says:

“Two men born on the same day, George Bush and the Dalai Lama.

“One who forgoes all thoughts of self to set the Wheel of the Dharma in motion, dedicates his existence to saving all life from suffering.

“The other, seemingly ethically mute to thoughts of peace and the fortunes of mankind; acts as an axis around which evil conspires.

Karma. Hopefully, what goes around comes around.

[Animated graphic here.]

Many TalkLeft readers will be interested in Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror by Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq. According to the NY Times review:

[T]he book serves as a valuable compendium and chronicle of the Bush administration’s aggressive efforts to expand the power of the executive branch, providing a detailed account of the unilateral actions it has taken on matters ranging from torture policy to domestic surveillance, and it is necessary reading for anyone interested in how those efforts by the Bush White House have tipped the constitutional system of checks and balances.

Entrapment has typically been the result of lazy police work by officers who find it easier to manufacture offenses than to solve crimes that have already occurred. Now some complain that private entities are playing the entrapment game. Specifically:

A company that sells antipiracy services to major studios and recording firms is being accused by some bloggers of trying to entrap individuals by getting them to download illegal copies of major Hollywood movies.

It's a brilliant (albeit sleazy) idea, if true: encourage the pirating of movies to boost sales of anti-piracy software. Media Defender denies that the story is true, but doesn't have a convincing explanation for the piracy-encouraging website's existence, or for its sudden disappearance after its connection to Media Defender was exposed.

[More importantly, will they vote to remove President Bush from office . . .]

Reacting to Sen. Pete Domenici's new words on Iraq, Harry Reid said:

Senator Domenici is correct to assess that the Administration's war strategy is misguided. But we will not see a much-needed change of course in Iraq until Republicans like Senators Domenici, Lugar and Voinovich are willing to stand up to President Bush. . . . Beginning with the Defense Authorization bill next week, Republicans will have the opportunity to not just say the right things on Iraq, but vote the right way too so that we can bring the responsible end to this war that the American people demand and deserve...."

Iraq votes next week? Who cares, we have an impeachment to dream about . . .

Update [2007-7-6 18:54:31 by Big Tent Democrat]: John Aravosis cares. My new favorite blogger. Sorry digby.

The ACLU responds to the Sixth Circuit's dismissal of its lawsuit over the NSA warrantless electronic monitoring program.

The decision is here (pdf.)

Big Tent Democrat weighs in here. Also check out Think Progress.

I'm busy day-jobbing today.

What are you reading and thinking about today? (Please remember to put any urls in html format because long ones skew the site.)

This brings us to the second enquiry; which is . . . [i]f he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

-Marbury v. Madison

One of the great ironies of the seminal case Marbury v. Madison is that it provided no remedy to the party, Marbury, whose vested right was deemed by the Court to be violated. Chief Justice Marshall struck down a law passed by Congress which purported to give jursidiction to the Supreme Court over actions such as Marbury's, ruling that the law was unconstitutional.

Today, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, dismissed the ACLU's case against the National Security Agency, which sought the enjoining of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the ACLU lacked standing and thus dismissed the case. More.